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Agriculture  and  Its  Educa- 
tional Needs 


BY 

ANDREW  SLOAN  DRAPER,    LL.D. 

Commissioner  of  Education,  State  of  New  York 


SYRACUSE,    N.    Y. 

C.  W.  BARDEEN,  PUBLISHER 
190 


S'^ 


This  address  was  delivered  December  29, 
1908,  before  the  State  Educational  Associ- 
ation at  Syracuse,  and  is  printed  with  the 
speaker's  permission  and  revision. 


44G330 


AGRICULTURE  AND  ITS  EDUCA- 
TIONAL NEEDS 


We  are  trying  very  hard  in  New  York 
to  bring  the  work  of  our  schools  to  the 
support  of  our  industries. 

A  year  ago  when  I  discussed  the  relations 
of  public  schools  to  the  mechanical  indus- 
tries, I  observed  that  the  reasoning  would 
be  different  as  to  the  agricultural  industries 
because  the  situations  are  unlike,  and  that 
I  would  take  up  that  theme  at  some/fiit-eii^e 
time.     I  turn  to  it  now. 

The  success  of  the  farmer  depends  upon 
balanced  character,  love  of  the  earth  and 
of  life  in  the  open,  knowledge  of  his  farm 
and  the  ability  to  make  some  scientific 
applications,  practical  experience,  a  grasp 
5 


6  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

of  market  conditions,  sound  relations  with 
railroads,  in  planning,  and  aggressiveness 
good  business  methods,  more  than  upon 
expertness  in  craftsmanship.  The  farmer 
is  his  own  capitalist.  In  New  York  we 
had  226,000  farms  in  1900.  They  aver- 
aged almost  exactly  one  hundred  acres  to 
the  farm.  Quite  200,000  of  them  were 
operated  wholly  or  in  part  by  the  owners. 
There  was  little  room  for  capital  to  dictate 
Hardly  any  other  man  has  the  earning  ca- 
pacity of  so  much  property  dependent  upon 
his  personal  attributes  as  the  farmer.  The 
mechanic's  equipment  is  in  his  skill  of  hand 
'  axwl  in  his  not  expensive  tools  if  he  works 
by  him^self ,  or  in  a  plant  owned  by  others  if 
he  works  in  a  factory.  In  either  case 
he  may  move  readily.  The  farmer's 
equipment  is  in  his  farm  and  in  his  trained 
and  dependable  judgment.  He  is  very 
much  a  fixture  wherever  he  is. 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  7 

In  the  mechanical  industries  men  live  and 
think  and  plan  and  work  collectively.  They 
go  out  much  of  nights :  they  associate  in  or- 
ganizations easily.  In  the  agricultural 
industries  men  live  and  work  very  individ- 
ually. They  come  to  conclusions  and 
carry  out  plans  by  themselves.  In  the 
cities,  centralized  capital  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  leaders  of  labor  organizations  on 
the  other,  struggle  with  each  other,  to  the 
frequent  disadvantage  of  both.  There 
much  depends  upon  others.  The  farmer 
controls  a  considerable  property,  and  the 
responsibility  of  prosperty  or  penury  is 
very  largely  upon  himself.  With  both  the 
farmer  and  the  mechanic  the  personality  is 
of  overwhelming  importance,  but  the  con- 
ditions give  the  individuality  of  the  farmer 
larger  opportunities  and  make  his  success 
or  failure  more  notable.  Essentially  the 
farmer  lives  at  home.     The  family  life  is 


8  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

by  itself.  The  work  is  at  home.  The 
family  all  have  part  in  it.  There  is  less 
mingling  with  fellow  craftsmen  and  with 
the  men  and  women  of  other  crafts. 
Trades  unionism  is  absent.  The  black- 
list and  the  boycott  are  almost  un- 
known. The  farmer  is  both  a  capitalist 
and  a  laborer.  If  there  are  combinations 
to  control  the  prices  of  labor,  they  will  not 
hold  together;  and  if  there  are  combinations 
to  control  the  prices  of  products,  they  are 
made  by  manipulators  who  get  the  advan- 
tages. It  all  makes  so  distinct  a  manner 
of  life  that  it  must  create  instrumental- 
ities and  policies  of  its  own. 

We  live  in  an  industrial  democracy. 
We  are  to  work  out  our  political  freedom 
and  our  political  theories  in  our  politics, 
our  religion,  our  education,  and  our  in- 
dustries. People  are  to  do  what  they  can 
for  themselves.     What  can  only  be  done 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  9 

in  combination  and  through  the  use  of  com- 
mon power  may  be  done  in  that  way  so 
long  as  the  fundamental  equality  of  right  is 
preserved.  With  this  simple  limitation, 
the  State  must  aid  all  of  its  industries. 
And  the  manner  of  its  aid  must  be  specific, 
and  the  measure  of  it  must  regard  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  industry. 

New  York  Agricultural  Conditions 
In  days  when  the  term  '^agriculture'* 
embraced  everything  pertaining  to  the 
farm ;  when  all  there  was  of  agriculture  was 
^'practical";  when  we  were  almost  wholly 
an  agricultural  people ;  when  there  were  no 
glittering  and  gilded  cities  to  allure  the 
youth,  and  no  railroads  to  carry  them  there ; 
when  our  tillable  lands  were  as  potential 
as  any  which  had  been  broken;  when  the 
farm  raised  all  it  needed,  gloried  in  its  in- 
dependence, and  was  the  attractive  abid- 
ing place  of  its  youth;  and  when  a  simple 


10  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

school  in  co-operation  with  a  simple  and  yet 
noble  civilization  sufficed  to  meet  the  es- 
sential needs  of  a  virile  people,  New  York 
was  the  first  agricultural  state  of  the  Union. 
All  that  is  much  changed.  You  will  not 
ask  me  to  weary  you  with  the  details,  avail- 
able to  all,  which  would  prove  an  obvious 
fact.  Taking  our  wheat,  corn,  oats,  barley, 
rye,  and  buckwheat  together,  we  have  less 
in  acreage  and  are  producing  less  in  quan- 
tity than  forty  years  ago.  The  total  value 
and  the  average  value  of  lands,  buildings, 
implements,  machinery  and  livestock  are 
less  than  thirty  years  ago.  We  have  come 
to  be  the  first  manufacturing  state  of  the 
Union.  Our  agriculture  has  not  advanced 
with  our  manufactures.  In  the  cereals 
other  states,  for  sufficient  reasons,  have 
forged  ahead  of  us,  and  it  seems  to  me  that 
we  have  not  recouped  where  we  might. 

I  have  much  in  common  with  the  prac- 
tical farmer;   I  join  him  in  his  amusement 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  11 

over  "gentlemen  farmers",  but  remind 
him  that  he  ought  not  to  begrudge  them 
the  pleasure  they  get  out  of  it,  nor  be  un- 
speakably cut  up  about  the  money  they 
spend  in  the  country.  I  am  with  him  in 
his  contempt  for  "scientific"  farming 
which  will  not  work,  but  I  remind  him  that 
there  is  much  scientific  farming  which 
will  work,  with  his  practical  help;  and 
that  his  practical  experience  will  not 
accomplish  a  great  deal  without  scientific 
help. 

The  situation  in  general,  doubtless,  is 
that  agriculturally  we  are  worse  off  than 
thirty  or  more  years  ago,  and  a  little  better 
off  than  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago.  Relative- 
ly we  have  lost  much  ground  in  many  lines, 
and  gained  ground  in  a  few.  The  respon- 
sibility for  some  of  the  losses  is  outside  of 
ourselves.  But,  while  we  could  not  avoid 
some  losses,  we  have  developed  new  situ- 


12  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

ations  and  new  demands  out  of  which  we 
might  have  made  our  losses  more  than 
good.  We  have  started  towards  doing  it, 
but  we  have  not  done  it.  It  is  not  enough 
to  give  thanks  that  we  are  not  worse  off 
than  we  are.  We  must  lay  hold  of  the 
forces  that  will  make  us  better  off  than  we 
are  and  perhaps  better  off  than  we 
ever  were.  Those  forces  lie  in  scientific 
knowledge  and  in  combined  action, — ^not 
combined  action  which  merely  complains 
and  tries  to  make  other  people  pay  for  our 
losses,  but  combined  action  which  will  do 
things  that  we  can  not  either  of  us  do  alone, 
and  which  will  make  it  easier  for  the  man 
who  has  juice  and  generosity  and  force  in 
him  to  prosper  above  other  men,  and  which, 
on  the  whole,  will  enable  New  York  agri- 
culture to  come  to  its  own  again.  Admit- 
tedly, there  are  some  conditions  that  are 
against]  it,  but^  there  are  more  new  condi- 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  13 

tions  which  are  in  favor  of  it.  If  we  can 
get  the  sentiment  of  the  State  in  the  way  of 
reasoning  that  the  government  of  New 
York  should  do  as  much  for  agriculture  as 
for  any  other  interest — or  even  a  little 
more,  and  if  we  will  lay  hold  of  accumu- 
lated knowledge  and  apply  it,  and  if  we 
will  organize  a  system  of  education  which 
will  support  it,  the  somewhat  heavy  task 
may  in  time  be  accomplished. 

Our  Natural  Advantages 
There  are  natural  advantages  in  our  fa- 
vor of  which  we  are  either  unmindful  or  to 
which  we  give  no  fair  value.  Take  for  ex- 
ample the  hills,  the  woods,  the  rocks,  and 
the  streams,  the  materials  for  building  and 
for  roads,  the  topographical,  climatic,  es- 
thetic, healthful,  and  moral  factors  con- 
nected with  them.  I  have  lived  for  ten 
years  in  the  Middle  West  upon  a  prairie 
where  one  could  see  the  headlight  of  a  loco- 


14  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

motive  for  twenty-five  miles.  The  soil  is 
deep  and  black,  without  a  stone  in  it.  The 
people  generally  abhor  hills  as  nature  does 
a  vacuum.  If  some  freak  of  nature  has 
formed  a  knoll,  they  call  it  a  hill  and  try  to 
plane  it  off.  I  have  seen  a  fine  row  of 
maples  half  a  mile  long  cut  down  because 
they  lessened  the  number  of  rows  of  com, 
and  a  man  of  wealth  thought  he  could  not 
afford  it.  The  roads  are  often  impassable, 
and  the  cost  of  hard  roads  almost  prohib- 
itive. Farmers  live  in  rubber  boots  for 
months  together.  The  motive  for  moving 
to  town  is  much  greater  there  than  here, 
and  when  a  farmer  lives  in  town  there  is 
trouble  at  both  ends  of  his  route:  at  one 
end  the  tenant  lets  the  farm  look  like 
Hardscrabble's  shanty,  and  at  the  other 
the  farmer  wants  to  keep  a  horse,  and  cow, 
and  pig,  and  chickens,  to  the  annoyance 
of  his  neighbors,  and  does  what  he  can  to 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  15 

avoid  the  cost  of  walks  and  pavements  and 
sewers  and  electric  lights.  It  is  all  natural 
enough,  and  only  proves  that  the  farmer 
is  likely  to  be  happier,  and  other  people 
happier  too,  when  he  makes  his  farm  an  at- 
tractive and  productive  place  and  lives 
upon  it.  During  my  residence  in  Illinois, 
the  farm  lands  in  all  the  region  advanced  in 
price  from  about  $60  to  about  $200  per 
acre.  The  regular  crops  of  com  and  oats 
make  very  sure  returns  of  eight  or  ten  per 
cent  upon  the  latter  valuation.  The  farm- 
ers are  rational,  and  intense  about  making 
money,  and  all  have  bank  accounts.  But 
you  do  not  have  to  get  as  much  income  out 
of  land  that  you  can  buy  for  $25  per  acre, 
as  out  of  land  that  is  worth  $200  per  acre, 
in  order  to  make  it  pay ;  and  the  farm  houses 
and  their  conveniences  and  connections  are 
no  better  there  than  here.  In  New  York, 
above  almost  any  other  state  in  the  Union 


16  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

we  have  the  hills  and  lowlands,  the  woods 
and  streams,  the  diversity  of  soil,  and  the 
stimulation  of  climate,  which  may  easily 
make  rural  life  the  finest  and  the  noblest 
in  all  the  world.  If  we  can  adjust  the  best 
kind  of  education  to  it  all,  the  great  leader 
of  the  states  will  have  no  difficulty  in  in- 
definitely maintaining  her  supremacy. 

We  have  eighteen  hundred  miles  of  state 
roads.  Put  end  to  end  they  would  reach 
from  New  York  to  Buffalo  four  times  over. 
Over  eight  hundred  miles  were  finished  dur- 
ing the  past  year.  There  are  five  hundred 
more  miles  of  road  under  contract,  and  still 
another  thousand  miles  awaiting  contract. 
We  have  expended  less  than  a  quarter  of 
the  $150,000,000  we  have  agreed  to  expend. 
With  the  good  roads,  and  the  telephones, 
and  the  trolleys,  and  the  daily  free  deliv- 
eries of  mails  in  all  sections,  the  rural  diffi- 
culties ought  to  measurably  disappear. 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  17 

Rural  Life  Gaining  in  Attractiveness 
Of  course  there  have  been  discourage- 
ments. It  takes  brawn,  and  brains,  and 
confidence,  and  contentment,  to  till  our 
New  York  farms.  So  does  real  success  in 
all  places  and  in  all  work.  The  weaklings 
have  to  fall  down,  wherever  they  are.  The 
cities  have  attracted  many  vigorous  and 
ambitious  young  men  and  women  from  the 
country.  Often  that  has  been  well.  One 
is  entitled  to  do  what  he  may  love  to  do,, 
if  he  loves  to  do  anything.  One  is  to  be 
commended  for  casting  his  lot  where  he 
will,  if  he  has  head  enough  to  think  it  out 
for  himself.  Such  men  carve  out  success, 
and  many  are  heard  of  in  the  cities.  The 
failures  are  never  celebrated  and  the  vol- 
ume of  them  is  never  known.  The  farming 
sections  have,  of  course,  suffered  because 
of  the  drift  to  the  cities.  There  has  not 
been  much  return  drift.     The  reasons  for 


18  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

it  are  not  hard  ^  find.  Those  reasons  are, 
however,  beginning  to  disappear.  The 
return  drift  is  setting  in  and  seems  likely 
to  be  strong  in  the  next  generation. 

State  Sentiment 

r  The  thinking  of  the  State  has  hardly  been 
balanced  in  the  last  decade.  We  have  been 
having  more  solicitude  about  forest  lands 
than  farm  lands,  about  forest  trees  than 
shade  trees  or  fruit  trees,  about  wild  ani- 
mals than  tame  ones,  and  about  trotting 
horses  than  work  horses.  Last  fall  we  had 
serious  forest  fires,  which  stirred  our  con- 
cern and  aroused  our  interest.  We  seemed 
to  be  well  provided  with  men,  machinery, 
and  implements  for  fighting  them.  We 
have  developed  a  fine  sentiment  about  our 
forest  preserve.  We  have  created  an  effi- 
cient State  Department  to  look  after  it. 
We  have  even  got  something  about  it  in 
the  Constitution.     It  is  admirable,  and  we 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  19 

are  proud  of  it.  We  are  protecting  our 
wild  animals.  One  has  to  pay  for  it,  and  be 
disgraced  everlastingly,  if  he  has  a  wild  hen 
in  his  larder  at  any  time  in  eleven  months 
of  the  year,  if  it  can  be  proved  that  the  hen, 
when  in  life,  was  wild.  Just  now  they  are 
trying  to  mulct  a  man  in  penalties  and 
punish  him  for  killing  deer  that  were  tame 
and  that  he  bred  and  raised  in  his  own  pad- 
dock. Last  winter  the  Legislature  made  it 
a  misdemeanor  for  a  farmer's  boy 'to 
shoot  weasels  and  woodchucks  beyond  the 
narrow  limit  of  his  father's  farm,  at  any 
time  of  the  year,  without  paying  a  dollar 
for  a  license  to  try  it.  We  will  not  worry 
about  that :  it  will  eventuate  all  right.  But 
insect  pests  destroy  more  value  in  farm 
products  every  year  than  fires  destroy  in 
value  of  forest  products  in  a  generation. 
Our  Science  Division  conservatively  esti- 
mates that  the  annual  insect  destruction  to 


20  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

our  farm  products  amounts  to  $24,000,000. 
Eastern  Massachusetts  has  lately  had  to 
fight  the  gypsy  moth,  a  great  destroyer  of 
shade  trees.  It  is  said  that  in  1907  that 
state,  in  co-operation  with  the  municipal- 
ities affected,  expended  $750,000  to  fight 
this  pest.  Now  it  is  added  that  these  little 
scoundrels  are  migrating  to  the  westward 
on  parallel  lines  of  latitude,  and  that  the 
first  division  has  even  got  as  far  as  Spring- 
fi^M,  and  is  advancing  upon  us  with  grim 
and  sullen  determination.  If  they  get  up 
to  the  New  York  line,  we  will  be  likely  to 
fight  them  with  resources  and  energy  enough 
to  make  them  pale,  because  we  shall  be  in 
comparison  with  Massachusetts  and  there 
will  be  some  flavor  of  patriotism  and  rivalry 
about  it.  But  fruit  trees  are  as  vital  as 
forest  trees !  Hens  are  as  much  entitled  to 
our  respectful  consideration  as  partridges! 
Jersey  cows  have  as  many  claims  upon  us  as 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  21 

deer!  I  recall  a  saying  of  Mr.  Beecher, 
that  it  was  a  great  pity  that  people  had  to 
be  bom  in  India  in  order  to  hear  Henry 
Scudder,  the  missionary,  preach.  Must 
we  move  to  the  mountains  and  the  woods 
and  live  irregular  lives  in  order  to  get  that 
help  for  our  common  interests  which  none 
but  the  State  can  give  ? 

How  to  Increase  Earnings 
There  are  ways  by  which  our  New  York 
lands  can  earn  more  money,  and  the  State 
is  bound  to  help  find  them.  We  are  not  to 
do  just  as  other  states  do.  We  have  not  the 
com  lands  of  Illinois  and  Iowa,  nor  the 
wheat  lands  of  Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas. 
But  we  have  abundant  facilities  for  pro- 
ducing things  they  can  not  grow,  and  we 
are  close  by  great  markets  from  which  they 
are  remote.  But  it  would  be  well  if  we 
could  see  how  much  they  are  ahead  of  us  in 
an  all-important  matter.     That  is,  in  the 


22  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

kind  of  education  which  they  are  sustaining 
in  the  applications  of  scientific  knowledge 
which  bears  upon  the  productivity,  and 
therefore  upon  the  life  and  pleasure,  of  the 
farm. 

There  are  two  great  lines  of  State  policy 
which  our  combined  action  ought  to  assure. 
We  ought  to  very  carefully  work  them  out 
in  our  minds,  have  them  established  by  law, 
follow  them  persistently,  and  bide  our  time. 
One  concerns  a  system  of  education  which 
is  calculated  to  sustain  modem  agriculture, 
and  the  other  relates  to  the  things  which  our 
combined  intelligence  and  power  may  carry 
directly  into  all  of  the  agricultural  parts  of 
the  State  to  help  the  people  of  readiest  wits 
who  are  most  disposed  to  help  themselves. 

The  Rural  Schools 

I  am,  of  course,  far  from  contending  that 
all  that  agriculture  needs  is  to  be  supplied 
by  public  schools.     There  are  other  great 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  23 

factors  in  the  problem.  With  agriculture, 
as  with  every  other  great  interest  and  its 
attendant  life,  there  is  as  much  to  be  reck- 
oned with  outside  as  inside  of  the  schools. 
But  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  agricul- 
ture above  almost  any  other  great  human 
or  commercial  interest  now  claims  the  sup- 
port of  an  adequate  and  comprehensive  ed- 
ucational system. 

Primary  schools  alone,  no  matter  how 
good,  can  not  supply  the  education  which  is 
required  to  make  the  most  of  the  agricul- 
tural industries.  The  man  who  says  high 
schools  are  unnecessary,  in  the  country  or 
an)rwhere  else,  is  behind  the  times,  and  as 
much  out  of  touch  with  rational  educational 
policy  as  with  the  spirit  of  the  country  in 
which  he  lives.  Nor  is  it  going  too  far  to 
say  that  colleges  are  as  vital  as  high  schools 
to  a  system  of  instruction  which  will  be 
equal  to  the  demands  of  agricultural  ne- 


24  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

cessity.  The  first  national  industry,  which 
supplies  the  larger  part  of  the  raw  material 
for  our  manufactures  ^nd  produces  four 
times  as  much  in  value  as  our  mines  and 
oil  wells  together,  brings  good  policy  to  the 
aid  of  necessity  in  claiming  the  support  of 
a  universal  system  of  education.  It  is  not 
merely  that  the  farmers*  boys  and  girls, 
like  all  other  American  boys  and  girls,  are 
entitled  to  their  utmost  chance :  the  nation's 
educational  purpose  has  combined  with 
situations  and  the  importance  of  the  indus- 
try to  settle  it. 

I  have  discussed  many  times  the  improve- 
ment of  the  rural  elementary  schools  and 
shall  doubtless  do  it  again,  but  I  shall  not 
gjf  into  that  now  beyond  treating  of  the 
factors  of  an  educational  system  which  will 
support  agricultural  needs. 

It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  not  much  to 
be  said  in  criticism  of  the  rural  schools  so 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  25 

far  as  general  elementary  instruction  is  con- 
cerned. It  is  true  that  there  is  a  lack  of 
grading  and  an  absence  of  plan  by  which 
pupils  may  progress  from  one  plane  to  an- 
other and  continually  look  forward  to 
higher  work.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the 
instruction  is  more  individual,  and  that  all 
of  the  pupils  hear  all  of  the  instruction  and 
all  of  the  recitations  in  all  subjects  and  in 
all  grades  of  work.  The  rural  schools  are 
at  least  reasonably  free  from  the  overcrowd- 
ing, the  overdoing,  and  the  over-exploita- 
tion for  all  manner  of  end§  that  is  so  common 
in  the  cities.  The  teaching  is  by  young 
women  of  an  average  competency  which  is 
now  remarkably  high,  and  no  one  is  allowed 
to  teach  without  proved  competency  which 
is  reasonable.  If  there  could  be  a  uniform 
system  of  supervision  by  superintendents 
who  hold  or  can  earn  teachers*  certificates, 
in  districts  that  are  small  enough  to  make 


26  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

actual  supervision  possible ;  if  such  a  system 
of  supervision  could  be  free  from  all  parti- 
sanship, and  if  the  supervisory  districts 
could  be  arranged  so  as  to  have  the  village 
high  schools  at  the  centers,  and  relate  all 
of  the  elementary  schools  to  them  in  a  way, 
there  might  be  a  universal  system  of  schools 
for  teaching  elementary  English  branches 
in  the  country,  quite  as  well  adapted  to  the 
general  needs  of  the  conntry  as  those  in  the 
cities  are  adapted  to  those  needs  of  the 
cities.     And  this  might  all  very  easily  be. 

But  while  the  schools  of  both  elementary 
and  secondary  grade  in  the  country  are 
serving,  or  may  without  diffculty  be  made 
to  serve  the  needs  of  the  country  in  the  or- 
dinary branches  of  an  English  education, 
they  are  doing  nothing  to  train  specially 
for  the  vocation  of  farming.  We  have  ap- 
parently come  to  the  imperative  need  of 
training  for  the  industrial  vocations  in  the 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  27 

cities.  We  have  been  training  for  the  pro- 
fessional vocations  for  more  than  a  gener- 
ation. There  is  quite  as  much  basis  of 
reason  and  right  in  popular  education  for 
the  vocation  of  farming,  as  for  mechanical, 
constructive,  commercial,  and  professional 
businesses. 

The  agricultural  situation  is  absolute- 
ly distinct  from  any  other  industrial 
situation,  and  if  it  is  ever  met  efficiently  it 
will  have  to  be  met  in  a  very  distinct  way. 
It  will  never  be  met  by  making  the  agri- 
cultural schools  of  the  country  primary 
schools.  The  children  are  too  young  to  want 
much  agriculture  in  the  elementary  schools : 
theywant  English,  andmathematics,  and  the 
elementary  sciences  there.  The  primary 
children  in  the  cities  stand  more  in  need  of 
agriculture,  than  the  primary  children  in 
the  country.  The  primary  schools  in  both 
city  and  country  are  all-around  schools. 


28  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

Some  of  the  city  children  will  go  to  the 
country:  some  of  the  country  children  will 
go  to  the  city.  The  education  of  the  coun- 
try child  is  not  to  be  narrowed  down  to 
things  rural.  His  books  are  not  to  exclude 
illustrations  from,  and  all  other  recogni- 
tion of,  rural  life,  but  neither  are  they  to 
exclude  all  else.  His  primary  school  is  to 
be  able  to  train  him  in  the  fundamentals  of 
an  all-around  man,  who  will  be  free  from 
all  exclusiveness,  and  able  to  study  and  do 
to  the  best  advantage  anything  that  his 
qualities  and  his  tastes  may  dispose  him  to 
study  and  to  do  when  the  time  comes. 

We  could  not  establish  exclusive  agri- 
cultural schools  of  primary  grade,  even  if 
we  were  to  get  wrong-headed  and  under- 
take it.  All  schools  require  balanced  work 
until  the  time  for  specialization  comes. 
Balanced  work  requires  elements  that  re- 
late to  the  country  as  well  as  those  that 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  29 

relate  to  the  cities,  and  vice-versa.  There 
are  higher  laws  and  fundamental  principles 
concerning  education,  and  they  bear  alike 
upon  all  parts  of  the  country  and  upon  all 
manner  of  people.  If  we  violate  these  laws 
or  break  these  principles,  the  people  soon 
come  to  realize  it  and  trouble  is,  as  it  ought 
to  be,  let  loose  upon  us. 

We  have  heard  much  about  nature  study. 
I  recognize  its  value.  I  intend  no  offence 
to  those  who  have  much  pleasure  in  it.  It 
is  good.  But  it  is  equally  good  for  all 
children,  as  cutting  paper,  and  weaving 
mats,  and  moulding  clay,  and  the  like,  are 
good  for  all  children.  All  of  these  things 
make  for  all-around  culture,  for  all-around 
outlook,  and  for  all-around  love  for  work 
and  for  facility  in  doing.  Nature  study  is 
quite  likely  to  appeal  less  to  the  country 
child  than  to  the  city  child  for  obvious 
reasons,  and,  while  it  is  to  be  encouraged 


30  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

in  the  country  as  in  the  city,  it  apparently 
has  about  the  same  relation  to  real  agri- 
culture that  sloyd  has  to  laying  out  an  elec- 
tric plant  for  a  city,  or  laying  down  the 
keel  for  a  battle-ship.  In  other  words,  it 
is  a  good  thing — a  good  thing  everywhere, 
because  it  helps  mould  the  character  of  boys 
and  girls  and  keeps  the  way  open  for  what 
may  come  after,  but  calling  it  agricultural 
instruction  will  not  increase  its  importance 
so  much  as  it  will  confuse  some  minds  and 
subject  us  to  the  criticism  that  we  are  not 
doing  what  we  proclaim. 

We  are  asked  to  encourage  the  teaching 
of  agriculture  in  the  elementary  schools. 
I  am  for  doing  it  so  far  as  is  practically 
possible.  I  admit,  however,  that  I  am 
at  a  loss  to  know  what  are  the  phases 
of  real  agriculture  which  are  adaptable 
to  the  primary  schools,  or  how  to  in- 
stall them  in  ways  that  will  dispose  children 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  31 

to  become  interested  in  them.  I  know  of 
many  things  which  look  to  quickening  and 
dignifying  the  different  agricultural  indus- 
tries, in  which  the  children  of  farmers  are 
likely  to  find  interest  and  which  are  not 
incompatible  with  the  plan  and  purpose  of 
the  elementary  schools,  and  I  am  for  intro- 
ducing them  into  the  course  of  study;  but 
I  confess  that  I  am  unable  to  see  the  reason- 
ableness or  the  practicability  of  teaching  real 
agriculture,  any  more  than  engineering  or 
medicine  in  the  elementary  schools.  Ag- 
riculture is  not  an  elementary  subject. 

We  are  asked  to  have  the  normal  schools 
train  teachers  of  agriculture  for  the  ele- 
mentary and  secondary  schools.  Some  of 
the  normal  school  teachers  know  something 
about  some  of  the  sciences  that  are  funda- 
mental to  agriculture,  and  some  of  them 
know  something  about  some  of  the  prac- 
tical methods  of  farming,  although  I  suspect 


32  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

that  not  many  of  them  would  claim  over- 
much. The  fact  is  that  nine-tenths  of  the 
students  in  the  normal  schools  who  will  ever 
teach  at  all  are  girls.  It  is  so,  and  doubt- 
less it  will  continue  to  be  so.  Ambitious 
men  who  go  beyond  the  high  schools  are 
going  to  the  colleges.  And  the  gods  of  the 
Greeks,  mean  and  sordid  as  they  were, 
would  laugh  at  the  spectacle  of  girl  teach- 
ers training  farmers'  boys  old  enough  to 
receive  it,  in  the  intricacies  of  real  agricul- 
ture. Generations  will  come  and  go  before 
there  is  any  substantial  result  to  agricul- 
ture through  the  girls  in  the  normal  schools. 
In  the  last  year  or  two  the  State  has 
made  appropriations  to  establish  three  sec- 
ondary schools  of  agriculture.  This  has 
been  in  response  to  a  general  sentiment 
in  favor  of  agricultural  education,  made 
without  very  full  consideration  of  the  true 
relations  which  education  must  sustain  to 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  33 

agriculture  in  order  to  be  effectual,  and 
without  any  definite  general  plan  about 
agricultural  education  in  New  York.  These 
schools  will  be  of  little  avail  to  education, 
unless  they  are  made  a  part  of  the  educa- 
tional system,  and  they  will  not  be  of  much 
ultimate  service  to  agriculture  unless  they 
are  made  to  articulate  with  schools  below 
and  schools  above  them;  and  it  will  be  well, 
before  we  go  further,  to  thresh  out  the 
whole  subject  and  determine  upon  a  plan 
which  will  be  comprehensive  enough  to  be 
worthy  of  the  State  and  of  real  worth  to  its 
agriculture  and  all  of  its  other  interests. 

Wholly  aside  from  the  absence  of  plan 
about  where  we  are  going  or  where  we  are 
coming  out,  it  is  a  very  open  question 
whether  it  will  be  well  for  the  State  to  set  up 
a  few  schools  of  a  secondary  grade  in  agri- 
culture, or  whether  we  should  expect  counties 
or  townships  to  do  it,  or  whether  we  should 


34  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

develop  agricultural  instruction  in  the  ex- 
isting high  schools.  The  Education  De- 
partment has  been  multiplying  and  en- 
larging agricultural  subjects  in  the  academ- 
ic syllabus  for  the  village  high  schools, 
and  we  are  to  be  guided  somewhat  by  the 
ultimate  policy  of  the  State  in  the  premises. 
The  high  schools,  unlike  the  elementary 
schools,  are  upon  an  educational  grade 
where  the  fundamentals  of  agriculture  are 
quite  practicable,  and  where  the  pupils  are 
old  enough  to  begin  to  have  some  real  in- 
terest in  the  subject.  Without  discussing 
that,  the  interests  of  the  State  in  general, 
and  of  agriculture  in  particular,  clearly  call 
for  discussion  and  for  a  plan  of  procedure 
to  the  end  that  time,  effort,  and  money  be 
not  wasted  and  substantial  results  indefi- 
nitely delayed. 

It  has  not  been  the  American  plan  to 
segregate   instruction   and   students — cer- 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  35 

tainly  it  has  not  been  the  plan  where  circum- 
stances have  not  compelled  it.  The 
strength  of  the  universities  has  been  in- 
creased by  the  very  coordination  of  their 
colleges,  the  strength  of  teachers  and  the 
potentiality  of  teaching  has  been  enhanced 
by  association  with  other  teachers  and 
other  teaching;  and  the  efficiency  of  stud- 
ents has  been  promoted  by  contacts  with 
other  subjects  and  with  other  students  than 
those  within  the  limitations  of  their  own 
particular  subject  and  their  own  particular 
class.  It  has  not  been  common  anywhere 
in  the  country  to  establish  state  schools 
below  the  college  grade  except  for  defect- 
ives or  dependents,  unless  in  association 
with  a  large  and  comprehensive  institution 
and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  no  school 
of  agriculture  in  this  or  in  any  other  coun- 
try has  become  markedly  successful  which 
was  not  associated  with  a  real  university 


36  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

or  had  not  become  in  fact,  if  not  in  name, 
a  real  university  itself.  And  I  am  bound 
to  look  with  some  regret  upon  any  New 
York  policy  which  would  put  students 
of  agriculture  in  an  enclosure  by  them- 
selves and  deny  to  agricultural  students 
the  associations  with  other  students  which 
their  interests  imperatively  demand. 

There  are  practical  as  well  as  education- 
al difficulties.  For  example,  the  courses 
at  these  schools  will  have  to  be  progressive 
and  extend  over  a  term  of  years  in  order  to 
have  any  respectable  result;  and  unless 
their  number  is  to  be  indefinitely  extended 
— ^unless,  for  example,  there  shall  be  at 
least  one  in  every  county — ^students  will 
have  to  be  separated  from  home  and  live 
at  these  schools  for  terms,  semesters,  and 
years  together.  The  break  with  the  home 
will  have  to  be  practically  as  complete  as  it 
is  with  college  students.     And  the  break 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  37 

will  have  to  come  before  the  college  age. 
The  State  will  probably  not  multiply  these 
schools  to  the  number  of  forty  or  sixty,  and 
the  interests  of  the  home,  of  the  pupils,  and 
of  the  schools,  will  hardly  suffer  the  separ- 
ation from  the  home  before  the  college  age. 
Then  why  not  do  the  best  we  can  for  agri- 
culture and  for  farmers'  boys  and  girls,  as 
for  all  scientific  subjects  and  for  all  voca- 
tional training,  in  the  existing  local  high 
schools,  and  when  pupils  are  able  and  dis- 
posed to  go  away  from  home  to  school, 
prepare  them  for  college  and  send  them 
to  an  adequate  college  and  have  the 
benefit  of  it?  And,  looking  at  the  other 
side  of  it,  why  enter  upon  or  pursue  a 
policy  which  must  make  the  public  high 
school  in  the  smaller  villages  merely  a 
preparatory  school  for  the  literary  col- 
leges? These  high  schools  are  the  peo- 
ple's colleges.     Why   enter  upon  a  course 


38  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

which  will  weaken  them  on  the  liter- 
ary and  scientific  side,  and  withhold  the 
aid  which  they  can  give  to  the  agricultural 
side  better  than  any  schools  which  are 
likely  to  be  established?  Why  begin  to 
exclude  from  them  the  things  which  are 
and  must  continue  to  be  the  widest  popular 
concern?  Why  not  determine  that  the 
high  schools  shall  be  broadened  so  that  they 
will  meet  every  need  of  all  of  their  consti- 
tuents, at  least  up  to  the  time  when  pupils 
are  mature  enough  to  leave  home  to  go 
to  college?  Science  and  agriculture  are 
inseparable.  Scientific  training  and  re- 
search, associated  with  practical  demon- 
strations, are  the  sum  and  substance  of  any 
real  agricultural  advance.  No  one  who 
has  had  any  experience  in  organizing  a 
school  of  agriculture,  with  lands  and  im- 
plements and  animals  for  practical  demon- 
strations, and  who  knows  the  difficulties 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  39 

and  expense  of  organization  and  mainte- 
nance, will  believe  that  there  will  be  any 
considerable  number  of  such  schools  estab- 
lished and  efficiently  sustained  in  this  State. 
Such  as  are  set  up  apart  from  an  institution 
of  higher  learning  will  not  be  efficient.  Nor 
if  established,  will  they  be  largely  attended 
by  pupils  of  high  school  age  who  have  to  go 
far  from  home.  And  all  around  the  village 
high  schools  there  is  already  * 'practical" 
agriculture  in  abundance.  It  is  fully  up  to 
the  high  school  plane.  Unless  there  is 
extreme  care  at  the  point  where  the  ways 
are  liable  to  part,  there  is  great  danger  of 
projecting  roads  which  will  lead  from, 
rather  than  to,  the  greatest  good,  not  only 
to  New  York  agriculture,  but  to  New  York 
education  as  well. 

An  Agricultural  College 

No  educational  system  capable  of  ade- 
qutely  supporting  the  agriculture  of  a  State 


40  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

will  be  complete  without  an  agricultural 
college.  One  with  experience  in  develop- 
ing an  agricultural  college  worthy  of  the 
name  will  know  that  there  will  not  be  many 
of  these  institutions  in  the  same  state,  no 
matter  how  great  the  state  may  be.  In 
such  a  college  the  best  scientific  training 
and  the  deepest  scientific  research  are  im- 
perative. If  they  are  not  of  the  best  and 
the  deepest  they  will  be  of  no  avail,  and 
they  can  hardly  be  such  apart  from  the 
teachers,  the  investigators,  and  the  laborato- 
ries to  be  found  at  a  real  university.  At  a 
real  agricultural  college  the  most  exact  and 
reliable  experiments  and  demonstrations 
are  also  imperative,  and  there  are  both  ed- 
ucational and  financial  reasons  in  abund- 
ance why  these  will  not  be  much  dupli- 
cated, or  often  realized  apart  from  a  univer- 
sity. In  all  phases  of  higher  education 
what  is  good  is  not  cheap,  and  what  is  cheap 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  41 

is  not  good.  It  is  no  less  true — doubtless 
it  is  more  true — ^in  the  higher  study  of 
agriculture  than  in  any  other  phase  of 
advanced  education.  And  the  higher 
learning  is  quite  as  vital  to  agriculture  as  to 
any  other  interest  of  the  people.  Then,  a 
real  agricultural  college,  associated  with  a 
true  university,  is  the  true  policy  in  this 
State,  and  such  a  college  may  be  expected 
to  vitalize  whatever  is  done  in  connection 
with  agriculture  in  the  high  schools  and 
whatever  has  a  bearing  upon  agriculture  in 
the  elementary  schools,  and  it  may  also  be 
expected  to  incite  and  uplift  profitable  agri- 
cultural operations  among  the  people. 
Then,  whether  or  not  an  erroneous  initia- 
tive has  been  given  to  provision  for  agri- 
cultural instruction  of  a  secondary  grade 
in  this  State,  we  have  made  no  mistake 
concerning  agricultural  teaching  of  the 
college  grade. 


42  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

The  State  has  recently  built  new  agricul- 
tural college  buildings,  and  provided  for 
developing  a  real  agricultural  college,  at 
Cornell  University.  There  are  those  who 
ask, — Why  has  not  Cornell,  with  New 
York's  share  of  the  land-grant  funds,  devel- 
oped a  real  agricultural  college  before  now  ? 
I  am  not  one  of  these,  because  I  know  some- 
thing of  the  difficulties  which  have  been  in 
the  way.  These  difficulties  have  persisted 
until  now,  but  happily  they  are  now  giving 
way.  They  have  related  to  the  scarcity  of 
competent  teachers  with  enthusiasm  in  the 
subject,  to  the  absence  of  students  who 
could  matriculate  in  a  college,  to  the  ab- 
sence of  any  actual  and  intelligent  interest 
in  agriculture  on  the  part  of  the  univer- 
sities, and  to  the  absence  of  any  rational 
plan  of  the  agriculturists  for  agricultural 
education.  The  western  farmers  have  had 
more  value  at  stake  in  their  farms  than  we 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  43 

have,  and  they  have  had  to  be  more  aggres- 
sive; and  the  measure  of  influence,  if  not 
of  control,  which  they  have  had  over  the 
State  universities  has  enabled  them  to 
solve  difficulties  and  find  ways  for  making 
agricultural  colleges  actually  serviceable. 
Out  of  it  all,  the  ways  to  that  end  are  much 
clearer  there  and  here  than  they  used  to 
be.  The  available  funds  of  Cornell  have 
all  been  used  in  other  directions,  and  if  any- 
thing worth  while  was  to  be  done  the  State 
has  had  to  do  it,  and  I  have  been  very  glad 
that  it  has  done  it  and  not  made  the  mistake 
in  agricultural  college  work  at  least,  of  so 
scattering  its  benefactions  and  its  direc- 
tions that  there  would  be  only  indifferent 
result. 

The  Need  of  Democracy  in  Agricultural 

Education 
So  far,  so  good — ^but  that  is  far  from  the 
sum  of  the  matter.     Before  any  system  of 


44  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

higher  education  can  be  of  any  substantial 
advantage  to  farming,  it  will  have  to  have 
its  head  in  a  democratic  and  a  sympathetic, 
as  well  as  a  real,  university.  Cornell  Uni- 
versity is  a  real  university.  Its  ideals  and 
its  scholarship  have  been  high.  Its  offer- 
ings have  extended  into  wide  fields,  and  its 
equipment  has  been  measurably  sufficient, 
But  its  disposition  has  never  been  so  demo- 
cratic as  its  management  has  desired  it  to 
be,  or  believed  that  it  was,  and  its  sympa- 
thy with  the  agricultural  industries  has 
never  been  so  consuming  as  to  lead  it  to 
rise  above  the  commonplace  in  things  agri- 
cultural, or  to  surmount  the  real  obstacles 
to  agricultural  investigation  and  instruc- 
tion. It  is  not  the  fault  of  a  board  of 
trustees,  a  president,  a  dean,  or  a  professor. 
The  trouble  is  beyond  either.  It  will  never 
be  cured  unless  that  university  becomes  the 
real  instrument  of  the  State,  nor  until  there 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  45 

is  a  strong  factor  in  the  board  of  trustees 
so  keenly  interested  in  agriculture  that  it 
will  use  its  power  to  compel  the  university 
to  accomplish  the  really  great  agricultural 
ends  which  can  be  effected  in  no  other  way. 
In  other  words,  the  erection  of  buildings 
for  a  college  of  agriculture  at  Cornell  Uni- 
sity  is  not  enough  to  insure  much  result  to 
New  York  agriculture.  The  gathering  of  a 
faculty,  the  laying  down  of  offerings,  and 
the  installation  of  an  equipment,  are  not 
enough.  That  college  will  not  only  have 
to  be  as  educationally  respectable  as  any 
other  college  in  the  university,  but  it  will 
have  to  stand  in  vital  and  living  relations 
with  every  other.  No  matter  how  elabor- 
ately equipped  it  may  be,  it  will  accomplish 
relatively  little  unless  it  has  the  fellowship 
and  the  stimulus  of  the  union  of  colleges 
and  graduate  schools  which  we  call  the  Uni- 
versity.    It  will  not  bear  large  fruits  unless 


46  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

it  has  to  respond  to  the  demand  of  a  real 
constituency  with  large  interests,  nor  until 
the  purposes  of  representatives  of  that  con- 
stituency who  have  the  intelligence  and  the 
authority  to  undertake  to  accomplish  par- 
ticular things  have  to  be  met. 

All  of  the  natural  sciences, — ^physics, 
chemistry,  zoology,  physiology,  bacte- 
riology, embryology,  thermatology;  the 
social  and  political  sciences,  history,  eco- 
nomics, the  mechanical  arts,  and  divers 
phases  of  engineering;  great  practical  ex- 
perience, and  a  large  amount  of  horse  sense, 
are  inseparably  involved  in  that  high  agri- 
cultural development  which  must  be  had  in 
the  State  of  New  York  if  her  agriculture 
is  to  keep  pace  with  the  other  commercial 
and  intellectual  activities  of  the  State.  Of 
course,  not  all  the  people  engaged  in  farming 
can  be  equipped  with  all  of  this  knowledge, 
but  a  considerable  part  of  them  must  be  to 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  47 

the  end  that  they  may  lead  the  way,  and 
when  such  men  lead  the  way  all  the  rest 
will  be  copying  larger  men  and  better  meth- 
ods than  they  have  sufficient  opportunity 
to  copy  now.  And  there  must  be  a  place 
which  will  not  only  initiate  new  undertak- 
ings and  lift  old  ones  to  higher  planes,  but 
a  place  to  which  any  occult  difficulty  may 
be  taken  for  investigation  and  report.  And 
investigation  and  teaching,  scientific  re- 
search and  the  training  of  teachers  and 
superintendents,  must  go  together  because 
one  is  as  vital  as  the  other,  and  each  inspires 
and  energizes  the  other.  And  with  it  all 
there  must  be,  in  the  agricultural  college 
at  least,  the  ever-present  feeling  that  agri- 
culture is  our  most  important  business,  and 
that  the  college  which  can  quicken  it  has  a 
larger  mission  and  is  entitled  to  a  fuller 
reward  than  any  other  kind  of  a  college 
which  the  ingenuity  of  man  and  the  gener- 


48  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

osity  of  a  people  have  ever  been  able  to  put 
upon  its  feet.  These  specifications  call  for 
nothing  short  of  a  real  university  under 
sorae  considerable  measure  of  popular 
control. 

Things  Outside  of  the  Schools 

There  are  things  to  be  done  in  the  inter- 
ests of  New  York  agriculture,  outside  of  the 
schools.  There  need  be  no  squeamishness 
about  doing  them.  There  need  be  no  hes- 
itation about  asking  the  State  to  do  them 
when  only  the  State  can  do  them.  It  is 
clearly  within  the  scope  of  the  political 
power  of  the  people  to  promote  an 
overwhelming  common  interest  by  com- 
bined action  when  it  can  not  be  done  in- 
dividually. It  is  unmistakably  so  when 
the  people  acting  together  actually  do  so 
much  to  enlighten  the  political  and  profes- 
sional life  and  culture  of  the  State,  and 
when  they  do  so  much  to  support  so  many 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  49 

of  the  commercial  interests  of  the  people. 
After  all  that  has  been  done  in  many  other 
directions,  agriculture  need  not  hesitate: 
and  others  need  not  sneer,  when  agricul- 
ture ventures  and  asks. 

For  example,  we  ought  to  have  a  com- 
petent and  complete  agricultural  survey 
made  of  all  the  farming  lands  of  this 
State.  The  farmers  ought  to  be  told 
rather  closely  of  the  general  attributes 
of  the  soil  of  the  different  counties  and 
of  its  chemical  elements  as  well.  They 
should  be  told,  in  a  general  way  but 
with  some  particularity  and  definiteness, 
how  it  may  be  used  to  the  best  advan- 
tage. One  may  say  that  they  do  know. 
Certainly  they  know  much  about  it,  but  if 
the  subject  were  to  be  intensively  inquired 
into  they  would  themselves  be  surprised  at 
the  number  of  things  which  have  not  yet 
occurred  to  them.     Quite  as  certainly  there 


50  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

are  some  things  which  common  usage  shows 
that  many  of  them  do  not  realize.  They 
should  be  told  of  the  additions  which  are 
needed  to  restore  what  has  been  taken  out, 
or  to  adapt  it  to  the  demands  of  new  situa- 
tions. They  should  not  have  to  take  this 
from  commercial  corporations  that  are  sel- 
ling fertilizers.  They  should  not  go  on 
putting  on  stuff  that  contains  nitrogen  and 
no  phosphorus,  when  what  the  ground  needs 
is  phosphorus  and  not  nitrogen.  They 
should  not  go  on  selling  products  contain- 
ing constituents  that  the  soil  requires,  when 
they  are  worth  more  to  keep  than  to  sell. 
The  common  belief  among  farmers,  that 
mere  rotation  of  crops  rests  and  recuperates 
the  soil,  is  doubtless  fallacious  beyond  the 
fact  that  some  crops  do  not  deplete  soil  as 
rapidly  as  others  do.  What  has  been  taken 
out,  what  needs  to  be  restored,  should  be 
declared  by  competent  authority  acting  for 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  51 

and  responsible  to  the  farming  interests. 
What  may  be  profitably  grown,  having  in 
view  the  factors  in  the  soil,  and  the  facil- 
ities for  changing  those  factors,  and  the  new 
facilities  for  transportation,  and  the  new 
demands  of  the  markets,  ought  to  be  assert- 
ed by  undoubted  authority.  For  example, 
again,  if  four-fifths  of  all  of  the  farm 
animals  in  New  York  State  were  to  be 
destroyed  by  some  noxious  disease,  it 
would  seem  a  great  hardship,  but  if  the 
pest  would  discriminate  in  favor  of  the 
one-fifth  which  it  spared  the  fact  would 
in  the  end  be  a  real  gain.  We  are 
continuing  the  propagation  of  great 
herds  of  mongrel  animals  which  are  com- 
monly less  serviceable  than  those  which  we 
might  breed,  and  which  often  are  not 
worth  their  keep.  We  fall  far  short  of  pro- 
ducing the  best  horses  sufficient  for  our  needs, 
either  for  all-around  or  particular  service. 


52  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

Every  farm  ought  to  have  at  least  one  new 
colt  every  spring.  He  should  have  a  ped- 
igree that  he  could  be  as  proud  of  as  a 
Son  of  the  Revolution  or  a  member  of  the 
Mayflower  Society.  He  should  not  be  ex- 
pected to  trot  a  mile  in  less  than  three  min- 
utes, but  by  the  time  he  is  four  years  old 
he  should  be  worth  at  least  three  hundred 
dollars  and  create  a  sort  of  savings  bank 
account  for  his  owner.  We  are  the  first 
dairy  state  in  the  Union,  but  we  have  much 
to  learn  about  milk  cows  and  scientific 
dairying  before  we  can  be  the  first  dairy 
country  in  the  world.  Of  course,  we  have 
some  fine  dairy  herds,  and  of  course  we 
have  some  up-to-date  dairymen,  but  do  any 
of  us  doubt  that  we  have  hundreds  of  thous- 
ands of  dairy  cattle  which  are  too  mean  to 
keep,  or  that  the  very  common  practices  of 
handling  dairy  products  are  alike  a  menace 
and  a  disgrace  to  us?     Ample  knowledge 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  53 

upon  the  subject  is  available,  and  the  real 
prosperity  and  pleasure  of  dairying,  as  well 
as  the  common  safety  of  the  people,  depend 
upon  observing  it.  Why  not  have  the 
State  make  it  known  and  compel  us  all  to 
observe  it?  Indeed,  why  not  have  the 
State  propagate  the  most  desirable  and 
profitable  animals  of  the  farm,  and  actually 
aid  farmers  in  propagating  such  for  them- 
selves? There  are  a  half  dozen  German 
states  which  have  more  money  invested  in 
buildings  and  grounds  for  a  veterinary 
college  alone,  than  the  State  of  New  York  or 
its  people  have  invested  in  veterinary  sci- 
ence since  the  Mohawk  began  to  pour  into 
the  Hudson.  The  Imperial  Government  of 
Japan  has  recently  been  studying  the  mat- 
ter of  hens,  and,  with  its  customary  habit 
of  taking  care,  has  just  sent  two  trusted 
representatives  to  England  to  select  the 
best  specimens  of  two  breeds  which  it  has 


64  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

decided  are  best  adapted  of  any  in  the  world 
to  the  needs  of  Japan.  Why  did  they  not 
take  American  hens?  Doubtless  because 
they  found  that  all  chickens  look  much 
alike  to  most  Americans.  The  proof  of  our 
indifference  to  domestic  chickens  is  cum- 
ulative. Yet  our  State  has  $15,000,000  in- 
vested in  poultry,  and  there  is  as  much 
difference  in  the  individuality,  and  the  pro- 
ductivity, and  the  respectability,  and  the 
value,  of  hens,  as  there  is  in  horses,  or  cattle, 
or  sheep,  or  swine,  or  people.  This  is  an 
ideal  State  for  first-class  chickens  and 
plenty  of  them,  and  why  should  we  permit 
ourselves  to  be  the  seventh  state  in  the 
Union  when  it  comes  to  such  attractive 
and  money-making  creatures  of  the  farm  ? 
We  smile  about  it,  but  other  peoples  make 
them  the  subject  of  governmental  care. 
Then  there  are  the  other  large  matters  of 
small  fruits,  and  vegetables,  and  flowers, 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  55 

for  the  markets.  Here  and  there  one  gets 
rich  through  the  discriminating  propaga- 
tion of  one  or  the  other,  but  most  of  us 
seem  to  blindly  suppose  that  they  are  whol- 
ly dependent  upon  their  own  spontaneity, 
and  that  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  leave 
them  to  nature  and  to  chance.  Yet  there 
are  other  states  and  other  nations  which 
see  that  it  is  worth  more  than  it  costs  to 
make  each  of  them  the  subject  of  the  in- 
vestigations and  the  teachings  of  a  distinct 
department  of  a  university.  Then  there  is 
the  vital  subject  of  horticulture  in  its  larger 
aspects,  with  its  infinite  claims  and  its 
unspeakable  possibilities.  The  apples, 
pears,  grapes,  and  nuts;  the  forests,  the 
shade  trees,  all  phases  of  landscape  archi- 
tecture and  gardening,  demand  the  over- 
sight and  the  leadership  and  the  aid  of  the 
State  on  both  the  scientific  and  practical 
sides.     Yet  again,  there  is  the  still  larger 


56  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

subject  of  the  homemaking,  with  its  archi- 
tecture and  sanitation,  the  matter  of  deco- 
rations, the  comforts  and  conveniences, 
with  the  adaptation  of  foods  to  the  family- 
needs,  and  the  thousand  things  which  with 
attention  will  make  the  life  of  the  mother  an 
easier  one,  and  the  possibilities  of  the  chil- 
dren different  and  greater  than  they  other- 
wise would  be.  And  right  there  is  the 
overwhelming  consideration  to  which  all 
others  must  be  contributory,  and  before 
which  every  other  pales  into  insignificance, 
and  that  is  the  public  need  of  knowing  that 
boys  and  girls  are  the  first  concern  of  a 
State;  the  public  obligation  to  do  the  mate- 
rial things  which  will  dispose  every  farm  boy 
and  farm  girl  to  look  upon  farming  not  for 
the  sake  of  the  farm  more  than  for  their 
own  sake,  not  as  repellent  drudgery,  but 
as  the  high  grade  business  that  it  is. 

All  these  things  are  outside  of  the  schools, 
but  they  have  to  proceed  from  the  prev- 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  57 

alent  system  of  education  and  they  all 
relate  back  to  the  schools.  In  a  word, 
from  which  there  can  hardly  be  any  dissent, 
the  prosperity  and  the  pleasure  of  a  great 
industry  depend  upon  the  completeness, 
the  symmetry,  and  the  co-operative  effi- 
ciency of  the  parts  of  the  educational  sys- 
tem which  enter  into  its  details  and  give 
rationale  and  character  to  it  as  a  whole. 
And  in  another  word,  from  which  I  do  not 
expect  dissent,  the  states  which  lay  the 
most  emphasis  upon  those  phases  of  learn- 
ing which  bear  directly  upon  the  mechan- 
ical and  agricultural  industries,  and  which 
carry  them  right  to  the  homes  of  the  people, 
will  enjoy  the  largest  commercial  prosper- 
ity and  will  have  the  happiest  and  the 
strongest  populations. 

New    York    Behind  in    Agricultural 

Education 
I  do  not  often  find  myself  in  the  attitude 
of  a  critic  of  the  Empire  State,  but  it  must 


58  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

be  said  that  New  York  is  far  from  the  front 
in  developing  policies  and  establishing  in- 
strumentalities to  aid  either  the  mechan- 
ical or  the  agricultural  industries.  With 
the  prestige  and  the  advantage  of  being  an 
old  state,  it  would  be  strange  if  we  did  not 
suffer  some  of  the  disadvantages  of  it.  Let 
me  point  out  what  the  educational  disad- 
vantages concerning  agriculture  are,  and 
why  they  are,  and  let  us  believe  that  we  may 
cure  them  if  we  will. 

The  Federal  Constitution  left,  as  it  was 
bound  to  leave,  universities,  as  all  other 
schools,  to  be  propagated  by  the  States. 
In  every  state  formed  after  the  adoption 
of  "the  more  perfect  union"  the  State  con- 
stitution provided  for  a  system  of  schools, 
and  ordinarily  for  a  state  university.  Ed- 
ucation was  a  universal  passion.  The 
western  pioneers  had  a  dreadfully  hard 
time,  but  they  had  the  pride  and  nerve 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  59 

which  kept  it  to  themselves.  They  were 
bound  to  build  up  new  states  to  rival  the 
old  ones,  and  they  realized  that  a  compre- 
hensive educational  system  was  the  only 
comer  stone  which  such  a  new  State  could 
have.  If  they  had  little  to  do  with,  they 
were  at  least  fortunate  in  the  fact  that  there 
was  nothing  in  the  way.  Even  public  uni- 
versities were  established  in  all  of  the  newer 
states.  The  people  laid  the  foundations  of 
comprehensive  educational  systems,  and 
crowned  the  systems  with  public  univer- 
sities. The  potential  power  of  all  this  has 
not  been  realized  until  the  coming  of  wealth 
within  the  last  twenty-five  years. 

Forty-six  years  ago  the  general  govern- 
ment provided  a  gift  of  thirty  thousand 
acres  of  land  to  each  state  for  each  senator 
and  representative  in  Congress,  upon  con- 
dition that  the  state  would  use  the  proceeds 
for  the  propagation  of  a  university  which, 


60  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

without  ignoring  other  branches  of  liberal 
learning,  would  lay  particular  emphasis 
upon  those  bearing  upon  agriculture  and 
the  mechanic  arts.  The  act  was  passed 
after  a  long  struggle.  It  was  passed  more 
than  once.  It  was  vetoed  by  Buchanan. 
It  was  signed  by  the  great  Lincoln.  This 
act  was  as  epoch  making  in  education  as 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  in 
political  progress,  or  as  the  Ordinance  of 
'87  was  in  the  advance  of  public  enlighten- 
ment and  morality. 

The  newer  states  had  the  larger  part  in 
procuring  its  passage,  and  they  were  the 
quickest  and  the  keenest  to  claim  their 
rights  under  it.  They  had  the  freer  democ- 
racy. They  were  in  the  pioneer  stage. 
They  lacked  nothing  in  assertiveness. 
They  wanted  all  that  the  older  states  had, 
and  much  more.  Universal  education 
became  speedily  a  universal  passion.    Their 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  61 

institutions  were  yet  in  the  liquid  state. 
The  Federal  grant  would  aid  their  already 
existent  state  universities,  or  support 
others.  They  had  the  system  which  could 
lay  hold  of  the  opportunity.  Every  one 
of  them  managed  to  comply  with  the  terms 
and  lay  hold  upon  the  grants.  Often  they 
had  a  hard  time  complying  with  the  re- 
quirements fot  rhe  twenty-five  years  fol- 
lowing the  war,  but  they  held  on.  Then 
the  country  had  filled  up.  More  acres  were 
put  under  the  plow,  and  all  the  acres  were 
made  more  productive.  Wealth  grew. 
In  the  eighties,  and  still  more  in  the  nineties, 
land  grant  institutions  had  developed  more 
highly  educated  constituencies,  and,  quite 
as  important,  they  began  to  show  the  people 
who  were  engaged  in  the  commercial,  manu- 
facturing, transportation,  and  agricultural 
industries,  how  to  make  more  money. 
That  settled  it.     Nothing  succeeded  like 


62  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

success.  They  went  after  more  money, 
and  now  each  gets  $50,000  per  year  be- 
yond the  proceeds  of  the  land  grants. 
And  now,  again,  every  one  of  the  newer 
states  puts  into  its  State  University  or 
land  grant  college  more  than  it  gets  from 
the  Federal  grants,  and  some  of  them 
twenty  times  as  much.  They  are  not  fools : 
they  are  more  intent  than  ever  on  having 
all  of  the  education  that  any  state  has, 
with  some  to  spare ;  the  roads  are  filled  with 
the  coming  and  going  of  students.  Ne- 
braska and  Wisconsin  each  has  a  larger 
proportion  of  college  students  than  either 
New  York  or  Massachusetts.  There  are 
graduates,  and  therefore  trained  agents, 
of  the  universities  in  every  village  and  upon 
almost  every  farm,  and  all  the  people  stand 
ready  to  make  further  investments  where 
they  will  pay.  They  are  not  doing  it  for 
mere  love.     They  see  that  there  is  money 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  63 

in  it.     Added  to  the  natural  educational 
enthusiasm,  that  concludes  matters. 

The  older  states  did  practically  nothing. 
They  are  only  now  opening  their  eyes. 
Their  ignorance  of  patent  facts  is  as  monu- 
mental as  it  is  stupid.  Of  course,  the  old 
order  is  in  the  way.  It  is  the  habit  of  the 
old  order  to  question  the  academic  quality 
of  the  new  order  of  institutions.  One  col- 
lege president  laments  that  the  people  put 
their  hands  into  the  people's  treasury  to 
promote  higher  education.  Another  chal- 
lenges the  applicability  of  liberal  learning 
to  the  industries.  Still  another  says,  as 
bluntly  as  it  can  be  said  in  classical  phrase, 
that  it  is  all  wrong  to  educate  people  out  of 
their  environment.  And  yet  another  looks 
through  spectacles  that  are  befogged  with 
the  literary  and  philosophical  training  of 
the  ages,  and  stoutly  denies  that  what  ac- 
tually is,  can  be.     It  is  not  strange.     Nei- 


64  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

ther  men  nor  institutions  can  be  made  over 
in  a  minute,  after  they  are  fifty  years  of 
age.  The  old  order  is  the  persistent  ex- 
pression of  social,  political,  and  educational 
aristocracy.  The  new  order  is  the  advance 
agent  of  educational  and  industrial  democ- 
racy. The  new  order  is  as  sure  to  persist  as 
the  Republic  is  to  endure,  for  it  is  only  the 
logical  outworking  of  the  democracy  of  the 
nation.  It  is  sure  to  go  in  every  state,  for 
the  nation  will  never  endure  half  slave  and 
half  free  educationally,  any  more  than 
politically. 

In  New  York  we  are  as  yet  in  the  old 
order.  We  are  not  quite  so  hide-bound  as 
some  who  live  in  the  still  more  educationally 
effete  East.  Some  men  and  some  facts 
have  helped  us.  But  we  are  a  long  way 
from  being  out  in  the  clear  sunlight.  We 
almost  lost  the  advantage  of  the  Federal 
grants  to  higher  learning  for  the  masses 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  65 

and  the  industrie/5  of  the  people,  and  would 
have  done  so-  absolutely  but  for  Andrew 
D.  White  and  Ezra  Cornell,  both  senators 
of  this  State,  one  a  scholar  and  educational 
organizer,  who  had  been  a  professor  in  the 
State  University  of  Michigan  and  the  other 
an  inventor  and  industrial  organizer,  a 
millionaire,  and  withal  a  philanthropist. 
Between  them,  with  these  qualities,  and 
being  in  the  Senate,  they  got  up  the  best 
scheme  that  was  practicable  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, rescued  the  grant  to  New  York 
from  utter  failure  by  providing  an  endow- 
ment and  creating  an  institution  which 
could  take  it  and  try  to  meet  the  Staters 
obligations  concerning  it.  The  State  did 
nothing.  It  merely  stood  by  and  bene- 
volently let  the  thing  be  done.  The  result 
was  Cornell  University.  I  have  never  been 
quite  able  to  see  how  the  scheme  held  to- 
gether and  worked  out  legally,  but  I  im- 


66  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

agine  that,  as  it  cost  the  State  nothing,  it 
was  looked  upon  with  a  good  measure  of 
legal  and  administrative  considerateness, 
as  it  certainly  deserved  to  be.  By  rea- 
son of  the  sagacious  location  of  the  State 
lands,  by  other  gifts,  and  by  hard  strug- 
gling, a  great  and  influential  university 
has  grown  up  on  the  hillside  at  Ithaca.  By 
reason  of  the  circumstances  of  its  origin,  of 
its  imperative  legal  obligations,  and  of 
the  fact  that  its  first  two  presidents — cov- 
ering terms  of  twenty- four  years — ^were 
professors  from  the  University  of  Michigan, 
it  partook  of  the  form,  of  many  of  the  fac- 
tors, and  of  much  of  the  spirit  of  the  state 
universities.  Because  of  the  scholarships, 
and  for  other  reasons,  it  stands  in  rather 
close  relations  to  our  State  system  of  edu- 
cation. All  honor  to  the  men  who  have 
done  it,  and  to  all  of  the  men  and 
women  whose  sympathies  have  entered  into 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  67 

it.  But  it  would  be  idle  to  say  that  in  any 
essential  way  it  sustains  the  relation  of 
either  a  State  University  or  an  industrial 
college  to  the  Empire  State.  It  does  not, 
and  it  can  not,  because  it  is  not  under  pop- 
ular control,  and  can  not  be  responsive  to 
the  natural  impulses  of  our  unfolding  poli- 
tical and  industrial  democracy,  nor  can  its 
practical  ministrations  be  accepted  by  the 
people  as  they  would  be  if  there  were  the 
sense  of  public  proprietorship  in  it. 

Aids  to  Wives  and  Daughters 

Up  to  this  time  we  have  been  thinking 
about  the  training  which  essentially  relates 
to  men,  and  about  farming  operations  out- 
side of  the  house.  It  would  be  a  mistake 
to  leave  the  subject  without  a  word  as  to 
the  special  training  of  the  women  who  live 
in  the  country,  and  as  to  the  education 
which  enters  directly  into  the  making  of  the 
farmer's  home.     To  accomplish  any  large 


68  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

results  men  and  women  must  not  only  work 
together,  but  they  must  have  equal  advan- 
tages; they  must  be  equally  enthusiastic 
and  aggressive,  and  the  work  of  each  must 
be  equally  regarded  and  respected  by  the 
other.  There  is  a  lack  of  such  equality  of 
outlook  and  opportunity  in  New  York 
education.  The  women  have  less  chance, 
not  so  much  special  training  either  in 
or  out  of  the  schools,  not  so  many 
social  contacts,  not  so  many  implements 
to  do  with,  and  not  so  much  to  stim- 
ulate and  liberalize  their  work  either  within 
their  own  homes  or  in  comparisons  between 
different  homes.  Of  course  there  are  not- 
able exceptions,  but  we  have  necessarily 
to  deal  with  generalities.  Of  course,  I 
intend  no  reflection  upon  a  class  of  women 
who  are  as  justly  entitled  to  the  highest 
respect  for  doing  all  they  do  under  cir- 
cumstances that  are  often  discouraging,  as 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  69 

they  are  entitled  to  an  open  educational 
chance  with  the  men,  which  very  commonly 
they  do  not  get.  If  the  women  could  be 
put  in  charge  of  the  farm,  the  operations 
would  doubtless  go  quite  as  well  as  they 
do  now,  but  if  the  men  were  to  be  put  in 
charge  of  the  house,  the  better  part  of  them 
would  either  lie  down  under  the  burden  or 
there  would  be  so  many  changes  and  so 
many  new  conveniences  and  fixings  and 
implements  that  the  treasury  would  be  bank- 
rupted. I  am  not  saying  that  all  of  the 
fault  is  with  the  men,  although  a  good  share 
of  it  belongs  to  some  men.  I  once  sat 
behind  two  farmers'  wives  through  an  ad- 
mirable cooking  demonstration  at  a  county 
* 'domestic  science"  association.  At  the 
conclusion  one  said  to  the  other,  *'I  suppose 
this  thing  is  all  right  for  these  city  and  uni- 
versity women,  but  I  can  cook  without  any 
of  their  help."     Doubtless  she  could,  and 


70  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

quite  as  doubtless  she  belonged  to  a  class 
who  have  as  much  to  learn  about  the  most 
desirable  and  economical  food  supplies,  and 
the  question  of  nutrition,  and  the  manner  of 
preparation,  and  the  time  for  use,  and  the 
manner  of  serving,  as  I  have  to  learn  about 
a  million  things.  And  that  is  far  from  all 
there  is  of  it.  It  reaches  to  the  making,  the 
sanitation,  and  the  decoration  of  the  home, 
to  the  furnishings  and  conveniences  of  the 
home,  to  the  deep  subject  of  home  econo- 
nomics  and  household  management,  and  to 
all  that  most  effectually  brings  the  vital 
support  of  the  home  to  the  support  of  the 
work  upon  the  farm.  It  may  make  the 
life  of  the  family  something  that  ambitious 
boys  and  girls  will  cling  to,  even  something 
which,  being  added  to  the  rational  and  cor- 
dial welcome  of  their  fathers  and  mothers, 
they  will  be  proud  to  invite  their  friends  to. 
In  a  word,  in  considering  the  educational 
needs  of  New  York  agriculture,  the  educa- 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  71 

tion,  the  liberal  and  special  education,  of 
women  claims  quite  as  much  as  that  of  men. 
There  is  quite  as  much  necessity  of  special- 
ization for  girls  as  for  boys,  when  the  time 
for  specialization  comes.  The  courses  in 
the  secondary  schools,  whatever  form  the 
school  is  to  take,  are  bound  to  regard  the 
work  of  girls  as  well  as  that  of  boys,  and 
there  will  be  no  complete  or  symmetrical 
college  of  agriculture  unless  there  is  asso- 
ciated with  it  a  department  of  household 
economy,  with  the  many  offerings  which  go 
to  the  bottom  of  all  the  problems  of  the 
household  upon  the  farm.  Nor  will  there 
be  sufficient  result  until  the  need  of  it  is 
recognized  among  the  people.  And  it  may 
as  well  be  added  that  when  such  courses  are 
provided,  there  will  not  be  so  much  result 
unless  girls  can  go  and  take  them  with  just  as 
much  independence,  and  security,  and  com- 
mon respect  as  any  boy  upon  the  grounds. 


72  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

If  this  can  not  be  until  boys  are  taught 
some  lessons,  the  date  of  entering  upon  that 
process  ought  not  to  be  long  postponed. 

Suggestions 

In  summary,  I  submit  the  following  sug- 
gestions concerning  the  educational  basis 
of  the  agricultural  industries: 

There  should  be  a  complete  and 
inter-related  system  of  schools,  elementary, 
secondary,  and  higher,  open  to  all,  and  es- 
sentially under  the  control  of  the  people  of 
the  State. 

The  elementary  school  should  be 
within  reach  of  every  farmer's  home.  So 
long  as  the  school  is  adequately  sustained 
and  competently  taught,  the  location  may 
be  left  to  the  people  of  the  district.  It  is 
more  a  question  of  expediency  than  of  ed- 
ucational principle,  and  there  is  no  balance 
of  advantages  in  school  concentration  to 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  73 

justify  forcefully  overthrowing  an  estab- 
lished order. 

The  elementary  schools  are  to  teach 
the  elements  of  an  all-around  English  edu- 
cation. They  can  not  specialize  much,  and 
they  are  not  to  be  in  any  sense  exclusive. 
They  are  to  aim  at  fitting  children  for  the 
choice  of  any  vocation  they  may  prefer  and 
for  beginning  the  preparation  therefor. 
They  are  always  to  preach  the  gospel  of 
work,  and  to  use  books,  objects  and  meth- 
ods to  stimulate  quite  as  much  interest — 
and  in  the  country  perhaps  more  interest — 
in  agriculture  as  in  any  other  industry. 
This  should  be  guarded  in  making  the  ele- 
mentary syllabus.  The  work  of  the  ele- 
mentary schools  in  the  country  as  in  the 
cities,  should  not  dawdle  and  waste  time 
through  the  multiplicity  of  books  and  the 
idle  exploitation  of  pedagogical  theories 
and  methods.     It  should  be  definite  quan- 


74  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

titively,  as  well  as  efficient  qualitively. 
The  attendance  laws  should  be  enforced  in 
the  country  as  in  the  cities,  even  though 
the  extent  of  child  labor  upon  the  farm  and 
the  distance  of  the  school  makes  neglect  of 
the  law  very  frequent  and  the  difficulties 
of  enforcement  very  great.  The  course 
should  be  simplified  and  shortened,  and  the 
child  brought  to  the  end  of  it,  with  the  as- 
surance that  he  has  some  definite  knowl- 
edge and  measure  of  efficiency,  by  the  time 
he  is  fourteen  years  of  age.  Better  profes- 
sional supervision  should  establish  some  sat- 
isfactory basis  of  graduation  from  a  country 
elementary  school,  and  graduation  should 
qualify  the  pupil  for  admission  to  the  high 
school,  or  a  district  agricultural  school. 

There  should  be  an  approved  high 
school  within  driving  distance  of  every 
home.  In  this  school  there  must  be  pro- 
vision for  an  all-around  high  school  train 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  75 

ing  which  will  fit  for  college  or  technical 
school,  and  there  should  be  a  distinct  cleav- 
age in  the  interest  of  agriculture  where 
pupils  will  elect  it.  Where  there  is  suffi- 
cient demand  for  it  to  justify  a  distinct 
agricultural  school  of  secondary  grade,  on  a 
parallel  with  the  trades  schools  which  we 
are.  beginning  to  organize  in  the  cities,  and 
such  course  can  be  taken  without  weaken- 
ing the  established  high  schools,  as  it  may 
be  in  the  cities,  argument  will  go  some  way 
to  support  a  distinct  agricultural  as  well  as 
a  distinct  trades  school ;  but  I  never  expect 
to  concede  that  agriculture  does  not  rest 
upon  a  broader  basis  than  mechanics,  and 
that  the  management  of  a  farm  does  not 
exact  a  wider  field  of  knowledge  than  the 
training  of  workmen.  Whether  special 
training  in  agriculture  be  carried  on  in  the 
established  high  schools  or  in  distinct 
schools  is  largely  a  matter  of  expediency 


76  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

and  convenience.  Let  it  be  done  in  the 
neighboring  village  high  school,  or  in  a 
distinct  school  to  be  developed  by  a  com- 
bination of  districts  or  towns,  or  possibly 
by  all  the  towns  of  a  county,  or  wherever 
it  promises  to  be  most  convenient  and  best. 
But,  wherever  done,  it  must  train  both  boys 
and  girls,  and  expect  that  they  will  live  at 
home.  The  work  must  be  fundamental 
to  agriculture,  that  is,  it  must  teach  the 
natural  sciences,  something  of  economics, 
much  of  common  business  usage,  and  a 
great  deal  of  the  simpler  phases  of  agrono- 
my, horticulture,  floriculture,  vegetable 
culture,  animal  husbandry  including  dairy- 
ing, home  making,  or  anything  else  con- 
nected with  the  industries  of  the  farm,  so 
long  as  it  can  be  done  with  the  facilities 
which  are  practicable  in  such  a  school,  with 
the  life  of  the  home,  and  all  the  surrounding 
environment  for  illustration  and  experiment. 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  77 

But  the  general  training  should  go  far 
enough  to  largely  relieve  the  student  from 
the  study  of  the  English  branches  if  he  goes 
to  the  agricultural  college.  It  is  of  a  grade 
which  may  be  quite  as  well  done  in  the  local 
school,  and  the  student  should  not  be  sent 
to  the  college  so  deficient  in  the  ordinary 
English  branches  as  to  make  it  necessary 
for  the  college  to  devote  so  much  time  to  it 
to  the  exclusion  of  work  in  technical  agri- 
culture. And  the  technical  agriculture  in 
the  high  school  should  count  as  much  as  any 
other  in  credits,  and  also  for  admission  to 
the  agricultural  college  for  those  who  will 
be  disposed  to  go. 

It  would  have  been  better  if  we 
could  have  well  considered,  and  could  have 
reached  definite  conclusions  concerning 
schools  of  agriculture  of  secondary  grade, 
before  any  of  such  schools  was  attempted 
by  the  State.     Certainly  others  should  not 


78  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

be  provided  for  unless  after  full  consider- 
ation and  upon  some  well  understood  plan. 
If  the  established  schools  are  not  to  under- 
take this  work,  and  the  State  is  to  do  it 
directly,  and  there  are  to  be  forty  or  sixty 
of  these  schools,  and  if  they  are  to  meet 
real  educational  standards,  then  there  is 
little  to  regret.  If  not,  and  if  some  agri- 
cultural work  is  to  be  done  in  the  present 
high  schools,  and  if  a  small  number  of  these 
State  schools  can  be  firmly  established 
between  the  existent  high  schools  and  the 
agricultural  college,  they  might  justify  their 
cost.  But  there  are  difficulties  in  the  way. 
It  is  likely  to  be  hard  enough  for  them  to 
secure  enough  intending  agricultural  stu- 
dents and  provide  enough  real  agricultural 
instruction  to  justify  their  cost,  when  they 
are  associated  with  a  college  or  university, 
as  at  St.  Lawrence  and  Alfred.  It  is  quite 
possible,  however.     It  will  prove  impossible 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  79 

for  one  which  is  wholly  independent  of  a 
college  to  do  that,  unless  the  State  is  to 
make  a  college,  and  not  a  high  school,  of  it; 
and  that  would  mean  an  expense  which  has 
not  been  thought  of,  and  a  rival  to  the  State 
college  at  Cornell  which  has  not  been  intend- 
ed. It  has  been  suggested  that  the  pro- 
posed school  at  Morrisville  which  is  as  yet 
wholly  unorganized,  be  transferred  to 
Colgate  University,  an  excellent  institu- 
tion which  is  but  five  or  six  miles  away,  and 
the  suggestion  seems  worthy  of  serious  con- 
sideration. It  might  be  held  to  be  un- 
thinkably  cruel  for  the  State  to  wholly 
recall  any  institution  of  this  kind  which  it 
had  once  agreed  to  provide,  and  I  would  be 
glad  enough  if  the  State  would  establish 
such  a  school  at  every  college  in  the  State 
which  would  be  strengthened  by,  or  be 
hospitable  to  it,  if,  after  discussion,  it 
should  be  thought  well  to  make  that  the 


80  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

general  plan.  But  the  State  education- 
al system  would  like  to  know  what  the  ed- 
ucational policy  of  the  State  concerning 
secondary  instruction  in  agriculture  is  to  be. 
It  will  be  good  State  policy  to  give 
liberal  support  to  the  State  College  of  Agri- 
culture and  expect  to  make  large  demands 
upon  it.  An  agricultural  college  is  bound 
to  be  a  college  as  much  as  any  other  kind  of 
institution  which  claims  the  name  of 
college.  Strong  teachers  and  many  offer- 
ings will  have  to  precede  the  coming  of 
students.  No  state  will  be  likely  to  support 
more  than  one  that  will  make  much  of  an 
impression  upon  its  agriculture.  The 
offerings  must  be  largely  in  agricultural 
technique.  The  equipment  should  be  even 
larger  in  fields  and  bams  and  herds,  than  in 
libraries  and  laboratories,  because  the  stu- 
dent should  have  a  reasonable  English 
education  before  he  goes  to  college,  and 


Agriculture  and  lis  Needs  81 

because  when  an  agricultural  college  has 
the  large  advantage  of  being  a  college  in  a 
university,  it  may  count  much  upon  the 
privileges  which  are  common  to  all.  By 
the  time  one  who  is  to  live  on  a  farm  goes 
away  from  home  to  an  agricultural  college, 
it  is  time  he  was  given  his  fill  of  agricultural 
instruction  that  is  actual  and  real.  But  a 
real  college,  properly  sustained  by  the 
schools  below,  will  gather  students  who  can 
matriculate  and  thus  make  an  impression 
upon  the  State  which  will  endure.  The 
State  Agricultural  College  must  be  sensi- 
tive to  rational  and  responsible  agricultur- 
al initiative.  It  must  not  only  train  men  to* 
manage  farms,  but  it  must  train  teachers 
for  agricultural  work  in  the  schools  below. 
It  must  be  scholarly,  but  it  must  be  as  demo- 
cratic as  it  is  scholarly.  There  are  people 
who  think  that  impossible.  Therein  lies 
the  difference  between  the  old  academic 


82  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

scholarship  and  the  newer  industrial  schol- 
arship. Other  states  have  found  that 
difference  and  reckoned  with  it  more  than 
once.  We  can  beat  them  all  if  we  will. 
The  State  Agricultural  College  must  not 
only  be  sensitive  to  the  initiative  of  others, 
it  must  have  an  initiative  of  its  own.  It 
must  find  out  the  things  which  New  York 
agriculture  needs  to  have  done  and  go  right 
ahead  doing  them,  knowing  that  if  they 
work  it  will  get  the  glory,  and  if  they  fail 
it  will  be  damned  for  it.  Teaching  and 
research  must  go  together.  They  always 
help  one  another.  The  State  College  of 
Agriculture  and  the  United  States  and  New 
York  State  Agricultural  Experiment  Sta- 
tions are  bound  to  supplement  each  other. 
Ithaca  and  Geneva  are  not  far  apart,  and 
the  roads  between  them  are  very  pleasant. 
Between  them  they  are  bound  to  investi- 
gate,   supply   information,    and    have    an 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  83 

opinion  upon  every  problem  a  New  York 
farmer  will  bring  to  them,  and  when  they 
do  it  the  New  York  farmers  are  bound  to 
listen  to  them.  They  are  to  supply  energy 
and  guidance  to  every  farmers'  organiza- 
tion and  every  agricultural  enterprise.  In 
theory  and  in  fact  they  are  to  assume  the 
leadership  in  a  great  system  of  education 
which  adequately  supports  our  fundamen- 
tal and  our  greatest  industry. 

We  should  enter  upon  a  great  system 
of  agricultural  extension.  The  schools, 
from  highest  to  lowest,  should  act  in  accord, 
not  only  in  training  students,  but  in  carry- 
ing knowledge  to  the  very  doors  of  the 
farmers.  Evangelistic  work  in  agriculture 
should  go  everywhere.  Seed  specials  should 
be  run  over  the  railroads.  The  blood  of  the 
best  farm  animals  should  be  distributed 
throughout  the  State.  Object  lessons  of 
special  interest  to  both  men  and  women 


84  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

should  be  carried  in  all  directions.  The 
applications  should  be  especially  adapted 
to  every  section,  and  the  fullest  attention 
should  be  given  to  the  less  favored  rather 
than  to  the  most  favored  counties  of  the 
State. 

I  hesitate  not  a  moment  in  saying  that 
the  State  might  well  send  a  commission 
of  practical  farmers  and  trained  scientists, 
or,  perhaps  better,  a  commissioner  who  is 
experienced  in  farming,  informed  in  eco- 
nomics, and  trained  scientifically,  to  any 
country  in  the  world  that  seems  able  to 
send  us  anything  in  the  way  of  farm  pro- 
ducts or  domestic  animals  that  will  be  of 
advantage  to  us,  with  authority  to  buy, 
and  directions  to  learn  whatever  would  be 
of  advantage  to  our  agriculture.  I  noticed 
in  the  New  York  papers  of  this  morning 
that  New  Jersey  has  just  imported  fourteen 
Percheron  and  Clydesdale  horses  to  extend 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  85 

the  breeding  of  these  magnificent  draft 
horses  among  her  people.  And  I  know  of 
another  state  which  has  sent  one  man  to 
Germany  to  study  veterinary  colleges, 
another  to  Denmark  to  study  dairying,  and 
a  third  to  Argentina  to  investigate  beef 
cattle.  There  are  scores  of  similar  sub- 
jects which  individuals  can  not  exploit 
because  they  do  not  know  what  to  do,  or 
are  without  the  money  or  the  inclination 
to  engage  in  large  undertakings.  In  such 
circumstances  it  is  clearly  within  the  func- 
tions of  the  state  to  act.  There  is  no 
smack  of  paternalism  or  socialism  about 
it.  All  good  governments  do  it  in  order 
to  aid  the  industries  of  the  people.  It 
involves  no  large  amount  of  money,  in 
view  of  the  sums  to  which  the  state  is 
customed.  But  it  can  not  be  done  by  agents 
who  know  little  about  it  or  who  are  more 
concerned   about   themselves   than  about 


86  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

the  enduring  interests  of  a  great  state. 
If  honestly  and  capably  done,  the  senti- 
ment of  the  state  would  cordially  sustain 
it.  And  if  it  were  done  through  the  State 
Agricultural  College,  or  the  Agricultural 
Experiment  Station,  or  one  of  the  State 
schools  of  agriculture,  there  would  be 
sufficient  assurance  that  whatever  was 
undertaken  would  be  scientifically  initiated 
and  well  and  wisely  carried  out. 

Conclusion 
There  are  perhaps  three  great  fundamen- 
tal factors  in  the  distributive  wealth  of  a 
State,  namely,  natural  resources,  commer- 
cial situation,  and  the  intelligence  with 
which  they  are  made  the  most  of.  The 
largest  factor  in  natural  resources  is  doubt- 
less the  tillable  soil.  We  can  not  claim 
that  the  proportion  of  our  potential  soil  to 
acreage  is  equal  to  that  of  some  of  the  prai- 
rie states,  but  there  is  no  doubt  whatever 


Agriculture  and  Its   Needs  87 

that,  with  existing  farm  values,  our  soil  may 
be  made  to  yield  quite  as  large  a  return 
upon  investment  as  that  of  any  other  state. 
Aside  from  that,  nature  has  been  exceed- 
ingly kind  to  us.  In  the  association  of  ar- 
able lands  with  mountains,  and  rivers,  and 
lakes,  and  forests,  and  glens,  and  water- 
falls, and  with  rainfalls  and  climate,  and  all 
that  stimulates  the  imagination  and  makes 
for  the  physical  and  moral  health  of  the  peo- 
ple, we  stand  second  to  no  State  in  the  Union. 
In  the  association  of  all  this  with  commer- 
cial situation,  we  easily  have  the  advantage 
of  them  all.  And  we  will  never  admit  that 
we  lack  the  sense  or  the  wits  to  act  together 
and  make  the  most  of  what  nature  and  situ- 
ation have  done  for  us. 

We  have  much  to  demoralize  our  think- 
ing, but  we  may  well  remember  that  the 
things  in  the  life  of  a  people  which  are  of 
utmost  and  enduring  worth  invariably  go 


88  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

back  to  Mother  Earth.  Manufactures  are 
dependent.  Importations  are  uncertain. 
We  may  not  always  take  toll  of  the  com- 
merce that  comes  through  both  our  eastern 
and  our  western  doors  and  is  carried  over 
our  highways.  Our  great  metropolitan 
city  may  not  always  be  the  clearing  house 
of  the  nation's  business,  and  even  though 
it  is,  the  profits  will  continue  to  go  into  rel- 
atively few  hands.  Mother  Earth  will 
never  forsake  and  she  will  never  fool  us. 
Neither  will  she  permit  us  to  trifle  with  her. 
One  who  can  not  afford  to  lose,  can  not 
afford  to  speculate  in  uncertain  and  de- 
moralizing crops  any  more  than  in  uncer- 
tain and  demoralizing  securities.  Nor 
can  he  afford  to  go  on  in  the  way  which  did 
well  enough  when  we  were  wholly  an  agri- 
cultural people,  when  children  were  sea- 
soned through  doing  their  share  of  the  work, 
when  books  were  few,  and  when  the  simple 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  89 

district  school  joined  with  the  work  of  the 
farm,  to  support  a  simple,  but  none  the  less 
a  noble,  civilization.  *We  shall  be  mis- 
guided if  we  do  not  continue  to  abide  with 
Mother  Earth  and  follow  the  course  which 
will  continue  to  make  the  most  of  her. 

And  we  shall  be  a  witless  as  well  as  a  mis- 
guided people  if  we  do  not  combine  to  ascer- 
tain from  the  reports  of  the  markets  and 
the  work  of  the  laboratories  what  may  be 
done  without  much  risk,  and  if  we  do  not 
adjust  ourselves  to  the  more  complex,  the 
more  intelligent,  and  the  better  life  of  our 
day  in  a  way  which  will  enable  our  proper- 
ties to  get  our  share  out  of  it.  The  farm 
house  will  have  to  have  the  essential  con- 
veniences and  connections  of  the  city  house. 
The  boys  and  girls  will  have  to  have  the 
things  which  they  know  other  boys  and 
girls  have.  The  young  men  and  maidens 
will  have  to  have  a  good  time  of  it  and  be 


90  Agriculture  and  Its   Needs 

able  to  find  the  ways  for  meeting  their 
reasonable  ambitions.  The  shorter  work- 
ing day  and  all  the  better  conditions  of 
labor  will  have  to  be  reckoned  with.  The 
comfort,  and  the  enlightenment,  and  the 
moral  betterment  of  all  in  the  household 
will  have  to  be  sedulously  studied  and  gen- 
erously provided  for. 

Of  course  the  social,  and  educational, 
and  industrial  combination  will  give  help 
to  such  as  accord  with  it  and  are  capable 
of  making  use  of  its  advantages,  but  the 
personal  equation  will  have  to  settle  things 
upon  each  farm,  and  the  personal  attri- 
butes of  the  individual  farmer  will  have  to 
prevail.  But,  while,  no  matter  what  the 
general  level  of  intelligence  and  sagacity, 
some  will  fail  and  complain,  and  some  will 
prosper  and  be  happy,  yet,  there  is  no 
doubt  about  the  public  attitudes  and  the 
common  undertakings  of  a  people  being 


Agriculture  and  Its  Needs  91 

often  vital  to  the  progress  of  men  and 
women  who  deserve  to  prosper.  In  this 
sense  the  people  and  the  government  of 
New  York  have  occasion  enough  to  do 
much  to  widen  the  door  of  opportunity  to 
all  of  our  agricultural  industries. 

To  find  the  true  and  sure  ways  for  widen- 
ing that  door  a  new  body  of  learning  is 
quite  as  necessary  as  old-time  practical  ex- 
perience in  farming.  It  is  no  easy  task. 
Both  educationists  and  farmers  will  have 
to  bury  their  conceits  and  enter  upon  the 
breaking  out  of  new  roads  with  all  modesty 
of  opinion. 

Governor  Hughes  has  given  us  an  admir- 
able Commissioner  of  Agriculture.  Liber- 
ally and  specially  educated,  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  the  new  spirit  of  agriculture, 
with  youth  and  ambition  and  yet  with  con- 
siderable experience  and  undoubted  gifts  in 
administrative  lines,   the  appointment  o 


92  Agriculture  and  Its  Needs 

Mr.  Pearson  to  the  headship  of  the  agricul- 
tural activities  of  the  State  is  altogether 
timely  and  encouraging.  I  am  anxious  that 
the  forces  which  he  and  I  represent  shall 
work  in  rational  co-operation,  and  that  each 
shall  bring  out  the  best  there  is  in  learning 
and  in  labor.  A  new  system  of  agriculture 
and  a  new  system  of  education  will  have  to 
join  forces.  Farmers  and  educationists  will 
have  to  join  hands  in  arranging  the  details 
of  a  new  system  of  education  and  in  making 
new  plans  about  work.  I  am  sure  we  have 
all  come  to  the  time  when  we  shall  be  glad 
to  have  it  so.  If  we  have,  the  rest  of  it  will 
not  be  so  difficult  after  all.  Both  agricul- 
ture and  education  will  be  the  gainers  by  it. 
Our  education  will  more  completely  aid 
the  evolution  of  our  industrial  democracy, 
and  our  agriculture  will  more  surely  come 
into  the  possession  of  its  own  again. 


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